Category: Quantified Self

One of the major reasons people are vary of jumping onto the self-tracking wagon is privacy of their data. Granted, when you’re trusting a fitness tracker to record how much you’ve run and how your heart rate varies, you’re trusting a slew of services that are working in the background. How can that balance be achieved?

Here’s an open secret to start things off: Connected technologies are evolving like never before. We’ve always seen the advent of wearable manufacturers and have seen different use cases for trackers, and while the market might be plateauing a little, it’s opening a window to explore more varied use cases.

Wearables can be distracting at times. Especially, when a person is driving. We saw it with the Google Glass, Snap Spectacles and even smartwatches. Apple just got a new patent that could place a limit on notifications on the Apple Watch in order to enhance driver safety. Its aim is to identify if you’re sitting in the driver’s seat and then reduce distraction, it implies that we may be closer to a formula for preventing all of those dreadful accidents which take place because of people texting or checking notifications while driving. The patent was granted for helping wearable detect controllers in vehicles.

Smartphones have made self-tracking easy and accessible to the masses. With new wellness software improving employee health & productivity it is taking over the workplace. Self-tracking of how the individual devotes his or her effort put forwards a mirror to every employee. In the era of digitisation, minute changes in work habits can lead the employees towards greater fulfilment and success at work. You might be amazed to explore several ways wearable can be a helpful tool for your organisation.

Lifestyle is an important area in which smartphones are adding value to our lives. Studies have shown that people’s constraint on their cell phones have contributed to obesity and other health-related issues. However, there are plenty of ways to use your smartphone to improve your health. It help you display your physical motion, plan improved meals, and keep track of your blood pressure and other personal data.

Wearables can track almost everything in our daily activities like movement, steps, sleep and heart rate. With so many wearables in the market today, selecting a fitness tracker can be a little difficult. The right wearable for you will depend on your individual needs and on how active your lifestyle is whether its step counting, sleep tracking or heart rate tracking.

Android Wear 2.0 just came out a few weeks back, the Huawei Watch 2 at MWC, the Levi’s/Google jacket at SXSW, and we also have a new Apple Watch with an update to WatchOS later this year. Overall, this year we are seeing smartwatches mature in terms of both hardware and software.

Smartwatches are known for tracking activity, fitness, heart rate, count the number of steps, calories burnt, and distance run, and so on. But imagine if your smartwatch can tell you that you’re about to fall sick.

In a study at Stanford University conducted by Snyder said, that his team was really amazed to see that the wearable were so effectual in detecting the beginning of the flu, or Lyme disease. They monitored around 60 people, and the researchers collected around 2 billion measurements, which involved sleep, heart rate, fitness, weight, blood oxygen levels and skin temperature. By making use of the mentioned data, they proved that it is possible to spot abnormal changes in anyone’s usual vital signs, which might signify a change in their health.